As North Korea's Communist Party celebrates its 70th Anniversary, one refugee
tells the story of her dramatic escape - and adjusting to life in Britain

If you came across Jihyun Park in Manchester, carrying a bag of groceries from the market for her children’s dinner, you'd struggle to imagine her past.

You might wonder about her slight limp - a result of forced manual labour and torture in a North Korean detention camp. And if you had met her a few years ago, she would have struggled to look you in the eye: a hangover from being under surveillance by guards who viewed such behaviour as defiance.

Hers is an extraordinary story: from being sold as a slave bride in China to working 20-hour days in a gruelling labour camp, and the dramatic moment during her escape when an unknown man - now her partner - saved her from being sent back and executed.

Despite having lived through more than most, Jihyun, now 47, tells me that she feels her life has only recently begun - specifically from the moment she touched down at Heathrow Airport in January 2008.

"When you asked how old I was, I wanted to say 'seven'," says the unassuming woman in front of me. "Before then, I hadn’t lived: I didn’t know what is love, what is family."

I wanted to hide my memories of my life because in China...I was sold as a wife, but it is not really a wife - I was just a subject

The ruling Communist Workers Party, which was founded 70 years ago this weekend, has recently ramped up its policy of punishing the families of defectors still living at home. In some cases, it has recorded videos of them pleading for those who have escaped to return home, and published them online. As a result, those with relatives in North Korea - including Jihyun’s husband Kwang - don’t want to speak publicly.

That hasn’t stopped the human rights abuses carried out under the Kim dynasty’s dictatorship being well documented.

Jihyun, who finally decided to flee North Korea when her brother was beaten almost to death for leaving the army, found herself in the hands of people traffickers when she arrived in China. After crossing the border in the north east in February 1998, she was sold to the highest bidder for 5,000 Yuan - the equivalent of £500.

The ordeal is still a big source of trauma, and it is only in the last few years that she has been able to talk about it.

"I wanted to hide my memories of my life in China," she says now. "I just couldn’t think about my life. I was sold as a wife, but it is not really a wife - I was just a subject."

"It's no coincidence that women make up an estimated 70 per cent of those who manage to cross the border from North Korea to China"

She was a slave in all senses of the word, forced to do manual work in the fields in Heilongjiang and to have sex on demand with her husband, a heavy gambler. Even after she gave birth to their son (she hid the pregnancy and delivered the baby on her own, for fear that she would be forced to abort), she and the baby were treated like outcasts.

Now, Jihyun recognises she was a victim. And she is far from alone. It's no coincidence that women make up an estimated 70 per cent of those who manage to cross the border from North Korea to China, according to the Ministry of Unification.

Without the option for seeking asylum in China, and often reliant on the whim of the broker who organised their crossing, many have been shepherded into prostitution or sold as wives to Chinese men when they arrive.

The shame associated with gendered abuse in north-east Asia has held many victims back from acknowledging what happened, even to their families, so as to protect children who may have been a result of abuse.

Betsy Kawamura, founder of Women4Nonviolence who works specifically with victims in far east Asia, even refers to it as 'coming out' and was the one who helped Jihyun come to terms with her past after meeting her in 2009.

“'Coming out' with stories of being human trafficking are still rare amongst the community,” she says on the line from Honolulu. “Though one can surmise that the majority of these women have encountered some form on sexual gender based violence on their escape from North Korea.”

The second escape

Being forced into marriage was not the end for Jihyun. Six years into her life in China, she was arrested by Chinese police, and handed over to North Korean border guards who interrogated her for weeks, then sent her to a labour camp near Chongjin, while her son remained with his father’s family.

But after just two months, an infection in her leg - caused by being beaten by a prison guard, then made to do heavy manual labour in fields full of sewage - meant she unable to work. She convinced doctors not to amputate, and was eventually released.

Desperate to be reunited with her child, Jihyun fled the country again, managing to escape to China over the mountains.

And so began her second attempt at life in the outside world.

She had no trouble taking her son from her husband’s family, who had neglected him while she was away. But after failing to get help from South Korea - the closest country in which she could claim asylym - Jihyum decided to seek refuge in Mongolia and took the train to the Chinese border in March 2005, along with seven other North Koreans.

"The Chinese border fence was two meters high. We cut a hole in it with wire. But I had a problem with my leg, and my son was still young," says Jihyun. "Everyone ran away - I was just holding his hand, walking."

When she saw a man running towards her, she was convinced it was a policeman: "I couldn’t say any words - I was just holding my son, and walking, walking, walking." But instead of arresting her, he picked up her son, helped her through the fence, and they both ran to safety. It was one of the other North Koreans, who had stayed back to help.

"It was very dangerous. If we had been caught, we would have been sent back and killed," says Jihyun, "But he just said: 'I never thought about that. I just wanted to save you and your son'. I had my first feelings for this man at the Mongolian border."

Fast forward eight months, and that man, Kwang, had proposed. By then, this close knit family of three had moved back to Beijing, the cold climate in Mongolia proving too difficult, and were living under the radar of the authorities. With no official papers, theirs was a DIY marriage ceremony, but no less sincere.

"After we got to know each other, this was the first time I ever knew love," says Jihyun. ‘He was a really good man. After a few months, my son Yong Joon said: 'can I call him father?'."

'I wasn't allowed to feel my personal emotions. It is brain-washing'

The couple are now happily settled in Bury, where they were first given a permanent home by the British government when they arrived in 2008: a Christian organisation had put them in touch with a UN official the year before, and they were finally granted asylum.

Theirs is a terraced house in the suburbs, far from most of their Korean counterparts in New Malden, south west London. But it is home: Kwang works as a cook in a local chinese takeaway and Jihyun with the NGO, European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea. Their three children are thriving.

Arriving in England was a bit of a shock: they had expected ladies with bonnets and gentlemen in three piece suits, in line with what the North Korean regime had told them. Making eye contact and understanding the nuances of British social niceties were also hard to get used to.

"English people say, 'Wait one minute', so we counted the seconds to a minute," Jihyun laughs. "We were waiting one hour."

"In North Korea, I wasn't allowed to feel my personal emotions. It is brain-washing"

But the biggest adjustment was getting in touch with her emotions.

In North Korea, any feelings were suppressed and Jihyun says only two were officially recognised: happiness and hatred. "If the regime is happy we’re happy. And the hatred is just against enemy countries, America and South Korea," she says. "I wasn't allowed to feel my personal emotions. It is brain-washing."

She can pinpoint the exact moment, in 2010, when she realised that there was more to life: sitting around the dinner table with her three children, who were smiling and chatting about school.

"That was the first time I felt happiness," she says. "Before I always thought happiness was very big - to do with the regime. But happiness is not big. It is small. It is family."